Thursday

I have been on a collar making binge these past couple days. The pads of my fingers ache like crazy!

I've been seeing collars everywhere, from cut-out button down collars to ones made of lace appliques. I love how DIY-able they are. After spending $12 or so on a pearl collar necklace at H&M, I wanted to try and make some collars myself.

Because I have always been one to overkill, I made 12.

I don't have a 'for sure" tutorial for this... but this is pretty much the gist. I guess that is the beauty of collars, you can use whatever chain you want in whatever length in whatever size.

It's pretty simple too, you just need a crap ton of chain and jump rings, clasps too if the necklace is too short to go over your head

Some of the collars I made were from scrap pieces of chain I had laying around. Some of the brass ones are made from chain I still had from a trip to Korea years ago.

After the ninth or so one, I guess I went a little crazy with my combos.

First off, I measured how long I wanted my necklace to be and added my clasps.

Right in the middle I attached a jump-ring and added the two lengths of chain that were going to be the collar.

Then I attached the ends to the necklace length. I kept all my necklaces symmetrical, but it might be fun to make one side a lot longer? Maybe?

On a couple of the necklaces, I ended it here. For others, I 'filled' the chain in, which meant I had to measure out and cut various lengths of chain.

It is a lot of measuring and holding up to my neck to figure out if the lengths were okay.

Here is the finished piece!

It's actually super simple, but kind of time-consuming with all the measuring and jump-ring opening. (Oh, the jump-rings!)

You can always get more fancy, mix metals, add strings of pearls or beads, make everything out of seed beads, stud it out, sequin it out, add lace, twist some embroidery floss, add charms, add spikes.... the options are endless.

They can be worn high or low as long as your lobster clasp can fit through the chain.

Before you finish the loop, slip on your chain and rhinestone stud finding. Then you will go and wrap it shut.

Put that aside, and now to the spike.

Wire-wrap the spike: Make one end a lot longer than the other and wrap it around the spike.

Do not clip the other end.

A loop will be formed already from the previous long end, so take your remaining wire and wrap it around.

Use your wire cutters to create an opening, slip on your spike and close the loop. (I was still thinking this tutorial through when I was taking photographs.) If you want to be more smart than me, haha, when you're making your cross in the previous steps, slip on the spike before you finish the loop. That way, this step is eliminated.

This still looked a little empty, so I added a small metal bead using the excess wire.